


drown me like one of your french boys

by hyperchroma (illizarov)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Toe injury, post-cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illizarov/pseuds/hyperchroma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No drowning, no French boys.<br/>Are there even boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drown me like one of your french boys

**Author's Note:**

> Seijou family time. This has been sitting in docs for about two months and was intended to be a mood changer but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Let me know if there are any untagged squicks/triggers.  
> Anyhoo, enjoy!

**i. how to be a captain**

Oikawa sneaks back into his room with something cradled between his arms. The small bell on his mum's good-luck phone charm jingles, and he muffles it with his hand, reflex quicker than swatting a fly.

He presses familiar numbers into unfamiliar phones. At last, he calls Iwaizumi by pressing the name at the top of his log.

"What is it again." Iwaizumi asks, mouth full on the other end.

"Testing, testing. Can you hear me, Mattsun?"

"No."

"Great! How about Makki?"

"Who's Makki."

"Excellent!" Oikawa claps his hands together, his face lighting up from the screens as he hides under a blanket. "I know I can rely on you guys."

"Oh..." His mum's phone speaker vibrates with the long syllable from Matsukawa.

"... no." Hanamaki completes.

On Iwaizumi's end, the theme tune of evening news plays between loud crunches. The maximum daytime temperature reaches its new high since 1990 yesterday. The reporter reads.

"Comrades, I would like to work with you one last time, as a captain."

Loud boos dissolve into crackling noises in Oikawa's parents' phones. He fumbles to lower the volume.

"Don't captain us when we're a term into college, captain."  
"Yeah, it's not a wild card, captain."  
"Evidently abuse of power."  
"Short live the captain."

Oikawa clears his throat, and gathers the three phones closer to his face. "You shall be rewarded with an entry to the Sunday Food Fair at Sendai." He pauses, more for dramatic effect. "You have all the rights to choose to accept or decline my offer. Those who wish to accept, please stay on the line."

Ten seconds passes, and the timers of the conversations still tick, though it's evident that Iwaizumi hasn't been listening.

"Oi, Trashykawa. You still there?"

"I know you’ll fight with me till the end." Oikawa giggles and says, more to himself than anything, and hugs the phones while he curls himself up tighter in the blankets despite the heat.

Some part amidst his hibernating/estivating process, he hears a sigh.

"We trust in you, captain." One of them says, and the lines fall quiet for a while.

**ii. how NOT to be a captain**

It's a Tuesday in their summer break; 9 A.M., when the streets are busy with people going to work, buses crowded, and files for them that can surround the whole Japan twice.  
Amidst the still asleep adults bathing in the sun, four teenagers stand in line, one with a child on his shoulders.

"Tooru, can I switch to Iwa-chan please?" Takeru wiggles on Oikawa's shoulders, hands pulling the well-styled hair.  
Iwaizumi beckons the two closer, and with a swift motion, he hoists Takeru over.

"Woah." Matsukawa sighs in awe.

"High ground operation." Hanamaki claps.

Iwaizumi walks a few steps as the file crawls forward 2 inches per hour on average.

"Can you explain to me," Iwaizumi says, as Takeru pulls on his hair but he doesn't care much, "why are you in floatees already."

Matsukawa shifts the doughnut around his middle, and helps Hanamaki adjust his shark fin shaped cushions on his arms.

"Captain didn't tell us we're taking the bus, sir."  
"Plus, this would be a more efficient way of bringing stuff. See? We brought these water guns too, and the sofa floatee."  
"While you brought Takeru and Takeru only."

Takeru nods, reaching over to pull Oikawa's hair once more.

A passenger boards the bus with a large suitcase and is being glared at by others.

"I think you better deflate them." Oikawa says, furrowing his brows (if that is of any consolation).

"Captain," Hanamaki pleads.

"You better," Iwaizumi says, stern. Takeru crosses his arms and nods.

"Vice..." Matsukawa turns to face him, patting the doughnut floatee, "Do you know how much time we spent on inflating these?"

"We used up half our lifespan."

"Please don't deflate it at me," Oikawa turns away, and hoists Takeru from Iwaizumi's shoulders, "I don't want your spit."

In the early morning of a summer weekday, while the line inches forward bit by bit to the oasis of bus air conditioner, two youths squeeze two giant structures on the street as small trumpet noises go in and out of the ears of dazed people of the night.

"Tooru," Takeru asks, "how long have you known them? Have they always been like this?"

"We don't know them." Iwaizumi says, and hoists Takeru onto his shoulders, again.

Case closed.

**iii. how one should treat their captain**

Half an hour later, they arrive at a pool in Sendai. There's a baby pool on the right, and an adult pool that goes to 5m deep at the far end, where three jacuzzi bubble audibly. A fancy bar stands alone at the far end of the adult pool, obviously targeting the fittest that possibly have swum to the deep end.

Takeru strips himself down to swimming trunks and semi-dives into the children's pool.

"Finally," Hanamaki shades his eyes with his hand, "we've arrived."  
"We should re-inflate those floatees." Matsukawa sits down on a chair. "And lose the rest of our lifespan."

"Fear no more," Oikawa produces a pump from his bag, and pumps it a few times in their faces, "Just because your captain is considerate and well-prepared."

He proceeds to empty the bag, which spills out water guns, float boards, more floatees, and sunblock. Oikawa adjusts the sunglasses in his hair, and starts unbuttoning his hawaiian shirt.

"Hurry up," Iwaizumi says, already down to stretching his arms and legs.

"This is not a competition, Iwa-chan," Oikawa looks around, unbuttoning his second button.

"It is," Iwaizumi says. He puts on his goggles and dives into the water.

Oikawa looks at the surface of the water for a few seconds, then shrugs. He unbuttons his third.

A hand claps onto his right shoulder. "Oikawa," Matsukawa sighs, reeking of the potential to be a father.

Another hand claps onto his left shoulder. Hanamaki explains slowly, "Nobody's watching," he pauses, "Nobody's watching you."

"What?" Oikawa blinks, and resolves to smiling, watching Hanamaki step back a few metres, where he starts running the same way back.

"Captain, time to join us."

Matsukawa releases his hold, and Hanamaki crashes into Oikawa.

Together, they fall into the pool.

**iv. how one should NOT treat their captain**

"Iwa-chan, I think I'm sunburnt." Oikawa whines and flops down onto a bench.

Iwaizumi grunts, finger on the trigger of his tiny water gun.

"I'm a growing plant who needs some water," Oikawa says, face down and in his towel. He sits up and looms closer to Iwaizumi. "Iwa-chan, can you spray some water on me."

Iwaizumi opens his eyes and inspects for a moment.

"Sure, come closer." He says, sitting up as well.

Oikawa closes his eyes and sticks his head as far out as his unbroken neck would allow.

Iwaizumi tries his water gun twice. The third time, he grabs the back of Oikawa's head and squeezes the trigger when he sticks the gun up the other's nose.

The lifeguard starts running in their direction.

**v. how one should NOT treat their captain v2.0**

"So," Oikawa stands in the children's pool, hands on his waist. "I believe we need a briefing on how we should behave here."

Iwaizumi crosses his arms, a tan line already apparent around his eyes.

"Which includes not spraying water up each other's nose, or changing the position of the limbs of a sleeping person." Oikawa continues.

Hanamaki tries his best to not look at the hand-shaped patch of light-coloured skin on Oikawa's stomach.

"It also means not drawing on each other with sunscreen."

Matsukawa might burst sooner than his doughnut, judging by how the spirals on Oikawa's face move when he talks.

"Can we swim now?" Takeru asks, kicking the shallow water by his feet. He doesn't wait for an answer, and dives straight under, submerged under the wavy surface.

Iwaizumi mutters something like "the Oikawas" as he exits the baby pool. He dives into the adult pool.

Takeru is still under.

"Captain, I think I feel something warm by my feet." Hanamaki raises his hand, the shark fin rising up as well.

"Me too." Matsukawa looks down at his feet, just beside Hanamaki's. Takeru hovers a few inches above them.

A look of horror bleeds out on Oikawa's face.  
Takeru breaks the surface of the water with a fling of his head, though he has no hair to fling.

**vi. how he ended up captaining**

The sun is at the edge of the city, sinking slowly and merging with the skyline. Oikawa's still on one of those sunbathing benches, with a glass of red liquid in his hand.

"What's this?" Matsukawa asks, stepping away from the pool.

"This?" Oikawa circles the glass, red liquid sloshes smoothly inside. "A drink from the lovely waitress at the bar." He points the glass in no general direction, at nobody in particular. The pool is pretty much an empty place.

"So what, you're underage drinking and swimming after that?"

"This is a mocktail, Mattsun," Oikawa crosses his legs, making to glance at the fast-disappearing sun. "A mocktail Blood Mary."

Matsukawa isn't stupid. He's part-timing at a restaurant that serves alcoholic beverages.

"So, like cold pasta sauce."

A loud thump might have saved Oikawa, for the look on his face, despite his eyes were shaded by his sunglasses, screams something like he'd rather have himself drowned in the baby pool than undergoing the bullying. (He thinks. He has been subjected to it for at least three years.)

"Hey," Hanamaki greets, with Takeru on his shoulders and a foot stuck under an anti-slipping mat.

"Are you alright?" Matsukawa asks, frowning at Hanamaki's immobilised foot.

"I guess I am," Hanamaki says, looking down and trying to balance Takeru at the same time. Iwaizumi snatches the kid over.

Takeru's eyes flash on like bulbs as Matsukawa lifts the plastic mat to free Hanamaki's foot. "Woah," he says, less to anyone but more to the loose toenail.

"Can you feel your toe?" Iwaizumi crouches down, inspecting closely. He reaches as if to touch the disaster, but Oikawa takes the chance to slap his hand away.

"Um," Hanamaki looks down for a while, "I can't move it."

"Does it hurt?" Matsukawa asks, "'cause it looks _hell-bent_ on leaving."

Hanamaki lifts his gaze into a deadpan, as quiet as the surface of the empty pool. Nobody's laughing. Nobody dares to. Takeru laughs, but he doesn't understand a thing.

**vii. how he ended up captaining v2.0**

They're two-thirds their way from the nearest clinic to the main bus terminal. Oikawa leads, with google map on his phone. Matsukawa's slightly behind, with Hanamaki on his back. Iwaizumi trails behind them, with Takeru on his shoulders, the doughnut floatee and shark fins fitted on him.  
The sky is dark by now, their footfalls punctuated by the background noise of cicadas song.

"You're heavy," Matsukawa readjusts the relative positions of Hanamaki’s limbs.

"We can switch." Iwaizumi offers.

"Oh, yes please --"

"No, thanks." Hanamaki looks at the street lights with well-established fear in his eyes. "I don't want my feet to be dragged all the way to the station."

At once, they fall silent. Iwaizumi lets Takeru onto the ground.

"I can hold you by your feet," Iwaizumi states his plan, calmly, "so it's your head that'll get dragged instead. How about that?"

Matsukawa's told to run, but he has nothing left in him. He's a dead man, and Hanamaki’s more dead than him.

“Lead us home, captain.” Matsukawa rasps, his last breath rushing out of him as Hanamaki gets handed over to Iwaizumi's fireman’s lift.

The rest of the evening passes without incident. In the end, Captain Tooru successfully leads his men home.


End file.
